N.J. Town Plans Beach of the Future

According to theAssociated Press, Ocean City, NJ, is planning a high-tech makeover, involving the deployment of Wi-Fi and radio frequency identification tags.

Among the technologies to be implemented are wristbands worn by visitors that link to their credit cards or bank accounts to pay for beach access or other services. Solar-powered, sensor-outfitted garbage cans will e-mail cleanup crews when they are full. The technology would also make it possible to link wristbands to each other, which for example, would enable parents to know where their children are.

Jonathan Baltuch of Marketing Resources reported that Ocean City’s mostly obstruction-free beach should be very amenable to the undisrupted transmission of wireless signals. The city would own the wireless network, which would allow officials to know precisely how many beach visitors are present at one time. Baltuch reckoned that the network could produce $14 million in revenue for Ocean City over the first five years of its operation.